Journal article
Neighborhood and Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults Living in Rural and Urban Regions in South Korea
Healthcare (Basel), v 11(4), 476
01 Feb 2023
PMID: 36833010
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Neighborhoods have a significant impact on depressive symptoms in older adults. In response to the increasing depression of older adults in Korea, this study aims to identify the relationship between perceived and objective neighborhood characteristics in depressive symptoms and find differences between rural and urban areas. We used a National survey collected in 2020 of 10,097 Korean older adults aged 65 and older. We also utilized Korean administration data for identifying the objective neighborhood characteristics. Multilevel modeling results indicated that depressive symptoms decreased when older adults perceived their housing condition (b = -0.04,
< 0.001), their interaction with neighbors (b = -0.02,
< 0.001), and overall neighborhood environment (b = -0.02,
< 0.001) positively. Among the objective neighborhood characteristics, only nursing homes (b = 0.09,
< 0.05) were related to depressive symptoms of older adults living in urban areas. For older adults living in rural areas, the number of social workers (b = -0.03,
< 0.001), the number of senior centers (b = -0.45,
< 0.001), and nursing home (b = -3.30,
< 0.001) in the neighborhood were negatively associated with depressive symptoms. This study found that rural and urban areas have different neighborhood characteristics related to older adults' depressive symptoms in South Korea. This study encourages policymakers to consider neighborhood characteristics to improve the mental health of older adults.
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Details
- Title
- Neighborhood and Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults Living in Rural and Urban Regions in South Korea
- Creators
- Seon Kim - Virginia Commonwealth UniversitySunghwan Cho - Virginia Commonwealth UniversityMatthew R Morgan - Virginia Commonwealth University
- Publication Details
- Healthcare (Basel), v 11(4), 476
- Publisher
- MDPI
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Urban Health Collaborative
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000945076600001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85148586131
- Other Identifier
- 991022004960204721
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- Web of Science research areas
- Health Care Sciences & Services
- Health Policy & Services